2. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Process of exchanging the data between two or more
independent process in a distributed environment is called
as Interprocess communication.
The interprocess communication in the internet provides
both datagram and stream communication.
The two communication patterns that are most commonly
used in distributed programs:
Client-Server communication
The request and reply messages provide the
basis for remote method invocation (RMI) or
remote procedure call (RPC).
Group communication
The same message is sent to several
processes.
4. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
It allows an object to invoke a method in
an object in a remote process.
E.g. CORBA and Java RMI
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
It allows a client to call a procedure in a
remote server.
5. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Request-reply protocols are designed to
support client-server communication in the
form of either RMI or RPC.
Group multicast protocols are designed to
support group communication.
6. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
The Characteristics of Interprocess Communication
Synchronous and asynchronous
communication
In the synchronous form, both send and
receive are blocking operations.
In the asynchronous form, the use of the
send operation is non-blocking and the
receive operation can have blocking and
non-blocking variants.
SYSTEM MODEL
7. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
The Characteristics of Interprocess Communication
Message destinations
A local port is a message destination
within a computer, specified as an integer.
A port has an exactly one receiver but can
have many senders.
10. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Sockets
Internet IPC mechanism of Unix and other
operating systems (BSD Unix, Solaris,
Linux, Windows NT, Macintosh OS)
Processes in the above OS can send and
receive messages via a socket.
Sockets need to be bound to a port
number and an internet address in order to
send and receive messages.
Each socket has a transport protocol (TCP
or UDP).
11. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Sockets
Both forms of communication, UDP and
TCP, use the socket abstraction, which
provides and endpoint for communication
between processes.
Interprocess communication consists of
transmitting a message between a socket
in one process and a socket in another
process.
(Figure 2)
13. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
UDP Datagram Communication
UDP datagram properties
No guarantee of order preservation
Message loss and duplications are
possible
Necessary steps
Creating a socket
Binding a socket to a port and local
Internet address
A client binds to any free local port
A server binds to a server port
15. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
UDP Datagram Communication
Issues related to datagram
communications are:
Message size
IP allows for messages of up to 216 bytes.
Any application requiring messages larger
than the maximum must fragment.
If arriving message is too big for array
allocated to receive message content,
truncation occurs.
17. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
UDP Datagram Communication
UDP datagrams suffer from following
failures:
Omission failure(process or channel failed)
Messages may be dropped occasionally,
Ordering
18. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP Datagrams
The Java API provides datagram
communication by two classes:
DatagramPacket
It provides a constructor to make
an array of bytes comprising:
• Message content
• Length of message
• Internet address
• Local port number
It provides another similar constructor for
receiving a message.
array of bytes containing message | length of message| Internet address | port number|
19. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP Datagrams
DatagramSocket
supports sockets for sending and receiving
UDP datagram.
It provides a constructor with port number
as argument.
DatagramSocket methods are:
• send and receive
• Set Timeout
• Connect
20. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP Datagrams
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class UDPClient{
public static void main(String args[]){
// args give message contents and destination hostname
try {
DatagramSocket aSocket = new DatagramSocket(); // create socket
byte [] m = args[0].getBytes();
InetAddress aHost = InetAddress.getByName(args[1]); // DNS lookup
int serverPort = 6789;
DatagramPacket request =
new DatagramPacket(m, args[0].length(), aHost, serverPort);
aSocket.send(request); //send nessage
byte[] buffer = new byte[1000];
DatagramPacket reply = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
aSocket.receive(reply); //wait for reply
System.out.println("Reply: " + new String(reply.getData()));
aSocket.close();
}catch (SocketException e){System.out.println("Socket: " + e.getMessage());
}catch (IOException e){System.out.println("IO: " + e.getMessage());}
} finally{if (aSocket !=null)aSocket.close()}
}
}
Figure 3. UDP client sends a message to the server and gets a reply
21. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP datagrams
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class UDPServer{
public static void main(String args[]){
DatagramSocket aSocket = null;
try {
aSocket = new DatagramSocket(6789);
byte []buffer = new byte[1000];
While(true){
DatagramPacket request =new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
aSocket.receive(request);
DatagramPacket reply = new DatagramPacket(request.getData();
request.getLength(),request.getAddress(), request.getPort();
aSocket.send(reply);
}
}catch (SocketException e){System.out.println("Socket: " + e.getMessage());
}catch (IOException e){System.out.println("IO: " + e.getMessage());}
}finally{if (aSocket !=null)aSocket.close()}
}
}
Figure 4. UDP server repeatedly receives a request and sends it back to the client
22. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
TCP Stream Communication
The API to the TCP protocol provides the
abstraction of a stream of bytes to be
written to or read from.
Characteristics of the stream abstraction:
Message sizes
Lost messages
Flow control
Message destinations
24. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
TCP Stream Communication
Use of TCP
Many services that run over TCP
connections, with reserved port number
are:
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Telnet
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
25. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
TCP Stream Communication
Java API for TCP streams
The Java interface to TCP streams is
provided in the classes:
ServerSocket
• It is used by a server to create a socket at
server port to listen for connect requests from
clients.
Socket
• It is used by a pair of processes with a connection.
• The client uses a constructor to create a socket and
connect it to the remote host and port of a server.
• It provides methods for accessing input and output
streams associated with a socket.
26. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP Datagrams
Example
– The client process creates a socket, bound to the
hostname and server port 6789.
27. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java API for UDP Datagrams
Example
– The server process opens a server socket to its
server port 6789 and listens for connect requests.
28. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
TCP Stream Communication
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class TCPServer {
public static void main (String args[]) {
try{
int serverPort = 7896;
ServerSocket listenSocket = new ServerSocket(serverPort);
while(true) {
Socket clientSocket = listenSocket.accept();
Connection c = new Connection(clientSocket);
}
} catch(IOException e) {System.out.println("Listen socket:"+e.getMessage());}
}
}
Figure 6. TCP server makes a connection for each client and then echoes the client’s request
29. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
TCP Stream Communication
class Connection extends Thread {
DataInputStream in;
DataOutputStream out;
Socket clientSocket;
public Connection (Socket aClientSocket) {
try {
clientSocket = aClientSocket;
in = new DataInputStream( clientSocket.getInputStream());
out =new DataOutputStream( clientSocket.getOutputStream());
this.start();
} catch(IOException e){System.out.println("Connection:"+e.getMessage());}
}
public void run(){
try { // an echo server
String data = in.readUTF();
out.writeUTF(data);
} catch (EOFException e){System.out.println("EOF:"+e.getMessage());
} catch (IOException e) {System.out.println("readline:"+e.getMessage());}
} finally {try{clientSocket.close();}catch(IOException e){/*close failed*/}}
}
}
Figure 7. TCP server makes a connection for each client and then echoes the client’s request
30. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
External Data Representation
The information stored in running programs is
represented as data structures, whereas the
information in messages consists of sequences
of bytes.
Irrespective of the form of communication used,
the data structure must be converted to a
sequence of bytes before transmission and
rebuilt on arrival.
31. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
External Data Representation
External Data Representation is an agreed
standard for the representation of data
structures and primitive values.
Data representation problems are:
Using agreed external representation, two conversions
necessary
Using sender’s or receiver’s format and convert at the other
end
32. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
External Data Representation
Marshalling
Marshalling is the process of taking a
collection of data items and assembling
them into a form suitable for transmission
in a message.
Unmarshalling
Unmarshalling is the process of
disassembling a collection of data on
arrival to produce an equivalent collection
of data items at the destination.
33. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
External Data Representation
Three approaches to external data
representation and marshalling are:
CORBA(Common Object Request Broker
Architecture)
Java’s object serialization
XML
35. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
CORBA Common Data Representation (CDR)
CORBA Common Data Representation (CDR)
CORBA CDR is the external data representation
defined with CORBA 2.0.
It consists 15 primitive types:
Short (16 bit)
Long (32 bit)
Unsigned short
Unsigned long
Float(32 bit)
Double(64 bit)
Char
Boolean(TRUE,FALSE)
Octet(8 bit)
Any(can represent any basic or constructed type)
Composite type are shown in Figure 8.
37. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
CORBA Common Data Representation (CDR)
Constructed types: The primitive values that
comprise each constructed type are added
to a sequence of bytes in a particular order,
as shown in Figure 8.
38. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
CORBA Common Data Representation (CDR)
Figure 9 shows a message in CORBA CDR
that contains the three fields of a struct
whose respective types are string, string,
and unsigned long.
40. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Java object serialization
In Java RMI, both object and primitive data values may
be passed as arguments and results of method
invocation.
An object is an instance of a Java class.
Example, the Java class equivalent to the Person struct
Public class Person implements Serializable {
Private String name;
Private String place;
Private int year;
Public Person(String aName ,String aPlace, int aYear) {
name = aName;
place = aPlace;
year = aYear;
}
//followed by methods for accessing the instance variables
}
42. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Remote Object References
Remote object references are needed when a
client invokes an object that is located on a
remote server.
A remote object reference is passed in the
invocation message to specify which object is to
be invoked.
Remote object references must be unique over
space and time.
43. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Remote Object References
In general, may be many processes hosting
remote objects, so remote object referencing
must be unique among all of the processes in
the various computers in a distributed system.
generic format for remote object references is
shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11. Representation of a remote object references
44. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Remote Object References
internet address/port number: process which
created object
time: creation time
object number: local counter, incremented each
time an object is created in the creating process
interface: how to access the remote object (if
object reference is passed from one client to
another)
45. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
The client-server communication is designed to
support the roles and message exchanges in
typical client-server interactions.
In the normal case, request-reply communication
is synchronous because the client process
blocks until the reply arrives from the server.
Asynchronous request-reply communication is
an alternative that is useful where clients can
afford to retrieve replies later.
46. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
Often built over UDP datagrams
Client-server protocol consists of
request/response pairs, hence no
acknowledgements at transport layer are
necessary
Avoidance of connection establishment
overhead
No need for flow control due to small amounts
of data are transferred
49. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
The designed request-reply protocol matches requests to
replies.
If UDP datagrams are used, the delivery guarantees
must be provided by the request-reply protocol, which
may use the server reply message as an
acknowledgement of the client request message.
Figure 13 outlines the three communication primitives.
52. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
In a protocol message
The first field indicates whether the message is a
request or a reply message.
The second field request id contains a message
identifier.
The third field is a remote object reference .
The forth field is an identifier for the method to be
invoked.
53. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
Message identifier
A message identifier consists of two parts:
A requestId, which is taken from an
increasing sequence of integers by the
sending process
An identifier for the sender process, for
example its port and Internet address.
54. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
Failure model of the request-reply protocol
If the three primitive doOperation,
getRequest, and sendReply are
implemented over UDP datagram, they
have the same communication failures.
Omission failure
Messages are not guaranteed to be
delivered in sender order.
55. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
RPC exchange protocols
Three protocols are used for implementing
various types of RPC.
The request (R) protocol.
The request-reply (RR) protocol.
The request-reply-acknowledge (RRA)
protocol.
(Figure 15)
57. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
In the R protocol, a single request message is
sent by the client to the server.
The R protocol may be used when there is no
value to be returned from the remote method.
The RR protocol is useful for most client-server
exchanges because it is based on request-reply
protocol.
RRA protocol is based on the exchange of three
messages: request-reply-acknowledge reply.
59. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
HTTP protocol steps are:
Connection establishment between client
and server at the default server port or at a
port specified in the URL
client sends a request
server sends a reply
connection closure
60. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
HTTP 1.1 uses persistent connections.
Persistent connections are connections that
remains open over a series of request-reply
exchanges between client and server.
Resources can have MIME-like structures
in arguments and results.
62. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
HTTP methods
GET
Requests the resource, identified by URL as
argument.
If the URL refers to data, then the web server replies
by returning the data
If the URL refers to a program, then the web server
runs the program and returns the output to the client.
Figure 16. HTTP request message
65. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Client-Server Communication
PUT
Supplied data to be stored in the given URL
as its identifier.
DELETE
The server deletes an identified resource by
the given URL on the server.
OPTIONS
A server supplies the client with a list of
methods.
It allows to be applied to the given URL
68. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
The pairwise exchange of messages is not
the best model for communication from
one process to a group of other
processes.
A multicast operation is more appropriate.
Multicast operation is an operation that
sends a single message from one process
to each of the members of a group of
processes.
69. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
The simplest way of multicasting, provides
no guarantees about message delivery or
ordering.
Multicasting has the following
characteristics:
Fault tolerance based on replicated
services
A replicated service consists of a group of
servers.
70. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
Client requests are multicast to all the
members of the group, each of which
performs an identical operation.
Finding the discovery servers in
spontaneous networking
Multicast messages can be used by servers
and clients to locate available discovery
services in order to register their interfaces
or to look up the interfaces of other services
in the distributed system.
71. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
Better performance through replicated
data
Data are replicated to increase the
performance of a service.
Propagation of event notifications
Multicast to a group may be used to notify
processes when something happens.
72. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
IP multicast
IP multicast is built on top of the Internet
protocol, IP.
IP multicast allows the sender to transmit a
single IP packet to a multicast group.
A multicast group is specified by class D IP
address for which first 4 bits are 1110 in
IPv4.
73. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
The membership of a multicast group is
dynamic.
A computer belongs to a multicast group if
one or more processes have sockets that
belong to the multicast group.
74. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
The following details are specific to IPv4:
Multicast IP routers
• IP packets can be multicast both on local
network and on the wider Internet.
• Local multicast uses local network such as
Ethernet.
• To limit the distance of propagation of a
multicast datagram, the sender can specify the
number of routers it is allowed to pass- called
the time to live, or TTL for short.
75. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
Multicast address allocation
• Multicast addressing may be permanent or
temporary.
• Permanent groups exist even when there are no
members.
• Multicast addressing by temporary groups must
be created before use and cease to exit when all
members have left.
• The session directory (sd) program can be used
to start or join a multicast session.
• session directory provides a tool with an
interactive interface that allows users to browse
advertised multicast sessions and to advertise
their own session, specifying the time and
duration.
76. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
Java API to IP multicast
The Java API provides a datagram interface
to IP multicast through the class
MulticastSocket, which is a subset of
DatagramSocket with the additional
capability of being able to join multicast
groups.
The class MulticastSocket provides two
alternative constructors , allowing socket to
be creative to use either a specified local
port, or any free local port.
77. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class MulticastPeer{
public static void main(String args[]){
// args give message contents and destination multicast group (e.g. "228.5.6.7")
MulticastSocket s =null;
try {
InetAddress group = InetAddress.getByName(args[1]);
s = new MulticastSocket(6789);
s.joinGroup(group);
byte [] m = args[0].getBytes();
DatagramPacket messageOut = new DatagramPacket(m, m.length, group, 6789);
s.send(messageOut);
byte[] buffer = new byte[1000];
for(int i=0; i< 3;i++) { // get messages from others in group
DatagramPacket messageIn = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
s.receive(messageIn);
System.out.println("Received:" + new String(messageIn.getData()));
}
s.leaveGroup(group);
}catch (SocketException e){System.out.println("Socket: " + e.getMessage());
}catch (IOException e){System.out.println("IO: " + e.getMessage());
}finally {if(s != null) s.close();}
}
}
Figure 18. Multicast peer joins a group and sends and receives datagrams
78. INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION
Group Communication
A process can join a multicast group with a given
multicast address by invoking the joinGroup
method of its multicast socket.
A process can leave a specified group by invoking
the leaveGroup method of its multicast socket.
The Java API allows the TTL to be set for a
multicast socket by means of the setTimeToLive
method. The default is 1, allowing the multicast to
propagate only on the local network.